Solo Leveling- Ragnarok

Chapter 179:

These days, queen bee Arsha has been under a lot of mental pressure.

She has no choice but to do that.

Since her body was already held hostage in the shadow dungeon, her life was mortgaged to her guardian.

In addition, Suho was the priest of Quresha, the king of bugs and the lord of plague, so he had to show off to him as best as possible.

But the problem was that no matter how much I tried to impress him, there wasn't really much I could do for him.

At best, she can use her worker bees to gather information...

I couldn't help but feel impatient when Lim Do-gyun, who I thought was a useless person, suddenly began to show tremendous work ability.

'I can't believe I should feel competitive with a person like that!'

Are there any other shameful situations like this?

It was a very unpleasant situation for Arsha, who had so far treated Lim Do-gyun's status as lower than that of a worker bee.

But what can you do?

I had to do something to avoid getting caught by Suho.

At the very least, shouldn't he be more helpful than Lim Do-gyun, who is at the bottom of Woojin's guild?

'This can't go on. 'Let's increase the number of worker bees as much as possible.'

Although he never thought that his men were lacking, he decided to increase it tenfold.

'If it's a worker bee without fighting ability, he can increase it as much as he wants!'

Arsha has never expanded her worker bees in this way before.

Because quality was more important than quantity to ensure the safety of her queen bee herself.

But now that her true self was staying in the safe(?) hideout of the Shadow Dungeon, she decided to compete with quantity rather than quality.

Why ae ae ae ae-

In this way, the number of worker bees under Arsha's control began to increase.

Arsha's method of increasing her load was extremely simple.

Feeding her own royal jelly to the ordinary worker bees living on her planet.

With just a human-sized sip of royal jelly, she was able to keep an entire hive in her household.

like that....

Weeeeeeeeenn-

Arsha's worker bees were scattered all over the country.

'Until now, we have only dealt with information about villains, but from now on, we will select information about the Devil Factory, Stardust, and Foreign Religion among them!'

Weeeeeeeeenn-

The worker bees began to flap their wings busily and gather as much information as possible from Arsha.

But worker bees are smart.

This is because no special abilities were given to increase the number.

So, Arsha, the queen bee herself, had to do the work of receiving and analyzing the information they asked for.

[Tsk. Two, headache...]

Arsha's eyes almost rolled back from the flood of information overflowing in her head.

But Arsha didn't give up.

Her queen bee pride would not allow her to back down to this extent.

Arsha desperately tried to control the information sent by tens of thousands of worker bees by cramming them into her head.

OK....

An unexpected phenomenon occurred.

[...!]

Arsha's consciousness, which was leading so many bees, suddenly exploded and expanded widely.

[Ahhh...!]

Arsha sat down on the spot and her whole body trembled.

and.

Jjoljjajak-!

Eventually, the transparent skin peeled off her body.

[The King of Bugs, the Lord of Plague, is keeping an eye on the queen bee.]

"hmm?"

Suho, who was in the middle of a daily quest, suddenly looked puzzled when he heard a message from Queresha.

Her limbs were crushed and she had no strength to raise her head, but Quresha's messages continued to be heard.

[The King of Bugs, the Lord of Plague, remembers the name of her queen bee, Arsha.]

'...Arsha's name?'

It was the first time that Quresha had mentioned Arsha's name so directly.

Quresha was the king of all insects.

Among them, the queen bee Arsha was just an insect, a member of her household who did not place much value on her.

But suddenly Quresha remembers Arsha's name?

'I don't know what's going on, but does this increase the likelihood that she will become a descendant of Ar Shaga Que Lesha?'

[Forty-one.]

"...?!"

At that time, Suho stopped thinking and protested at the sudden sound of Ammut's stern voice.

"Forty-two!"

[Your posture is wrong. Forty-one.]

"Tsk."

Suho gritted his teeth and resumed doing push-ups due to Ammut's determination to never back down.

And just when I had barely finished the daily quest, Arsha appeared in front of Guardian.

[Suho, I think my worker bees found something.]

Arsha conveyed the information she had received from her worker bees to Suho with a slightly serious expression.

[It seems like a strange 'superstition' has emerged among low-level hunters these days.]

"Superstition?"

[After the association designated stardust as an illegal drug, the number of hunters who make stardust into accessories and wear them has increased.]

"accessories? "What does that mean?"

Making stardust into accessories?

When Suho made a puzzled expression, Arsha continued her explanation seriously.

[Stardust is hardened into stone and made into a necklace to wear. And every time I enter a dungeon, I pray into that necklace.]

"...Pray?"

Suho felt strange.

He said that star dust was not illegal as long as he did not eat it.

But why bother making it into a necklace and praying over it?

There's no way that magic power could be amplified, right?

"If that's the case... I saw it on Hunter Net recently too."

At that moment, Lim Do-gyun, who had fainted while training with Su-ho, woke up and crawled up next to him and joined the conversation.

When Su-ho opened his mouth and fed him the potion, Do-gyun Lim stood up with an expression of determination to live and continued his explanation.

"Recently, star dust was made illegal, so people who paid for large quantities of star dust in advance went into an uproar. I suddenly ended up with a lot of bad inventory. However, the association has no obligation to pay that money instead."

Moreover, since it was discovered that people were burned alive during the production process, no one wanted to eat it anymore.

"Then, at some point, an atmosphere of prayer began to emerge, saying that we would comfort the souls of those who died during the production of stardust."

"hmm."

"At the same time, people started selling the stardust they bought before it became illegal to make necklaces and sell them. Doping magical power with stardust is illegal, but this is a trick that started out with a strangely good meaning."

Suho had a serious expression on his face the entire time he was listening to Lim Do-gyun's explanation.

'We honor the souls of the dead.'

This in itself clearly had a good meaning.

However, the object of the prayer was the problem.

'Blue Fog', the most basic ingredient of stardust, is the magical power of outer space that melts the boundaries of dimensions.

In other words, wasn't it the Itarim invasion itself?

But praying into that blue fog?

"This... is a bit strong."

[I told you this because I think it is related to foreign religion in some way.]

Suho nodded his head at Arsha's words.

Looking back, nothing like this was accidental.

Especially things related to Italim.

"Arsha, hunters praying to the necklace...."

[As for those hunters, my worker bees have already found out.]

"No, rather than those hunters, please find out who are the guys who are selling stardust necklaces to those hunters."

[ah...!]

Arsha's eyes widened at Suho's words.

[All right! I'll find out right away.]

Arsha answered quickly, sending her thoughts to the worker bees spread out across the country.

And after some time.

[I found it.]

Since she had already looked for hunters who wore necklaces, it was not difficult to find the route by which they obtained the necklace.

It wasn't illegal to begin with, so they didn't even think about living in secret.

But Arsha went one step further and even investigated where the people who sold them the necklaces got their items from.

[There are many distributors, and they all bring stardust necklaces from one region.]

"One area? "Where is it?"

[This is Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi-do.]

"Yangpyeong?!"

[...?]

[Kiek?]

At Suho's violent reaction the moment he heard about that area, Arsha and even Ber next to her looked puzzled.

[Solord, is there any problem?]

In response to Ver's question, Suho sighed, touching his forehead with a serious expression.

"That's where my grandfather and grandmother live."

[Keeeeeeek?!]

* * *

Su-ho's grandfather Seong Il-hwan.

When Suho was young, the image of his grandfather that he remembered was a firefighter who could always smell smoke from his body.

And Seong Il-hwan never quit his job as a firefighter, even though his son Seong Jin-woo nagged him to retire and take some rest.

And he eventually retired from active duty, working with young juniors until the moment he retired.

Suho still vividly remembered his grandfather's retirement ceremony.

'Seniors! Thank you for your hard work!'

'Thank you for your hard work!'

'Thank you for your hard work!'

....

The grandfather proudly completed his retirement and came down from the podium, receiving applause from all his colleagues and junior firefighters.

Even to that day, the faint smell of fire could be felt from his grandfather's firefighter uniform.

Su-ho's grandfather, having finished the work he had devoted his entire life to, went down to the countryside, saying he would live a small life by farming with his grandmother.

Of course, it is a rural area, but in fact, it is not outside the Gyeonggi-do area.

Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi-do.

A place that is moderately far and moderately close to Seoul, and at the same time has beautiful natural scenery such as wide plains and valleys.

The person who provided a suitable house for Su-ho's grandfather and grandmother to live in was none other than Jin-ho Yoo.

But why Yangpyeong?

'After all, this is where my grandfather lives!'

Suho became anxious at the thought that there might be an organization related to foreign religion there.

But there was someone who was more restless than him, and that was Ber.

[Everyone, we have to go right away! This is a really big deal!]

Only then did Ber remember what he had forgotten.

No, why!

Did it just occur to me now?

[This is entirely the little man's fault! He deserves to be severely punished, but now it is too urgent!]

"what's the matter? "Is there something I don't know about?"

Suho runs straight to Yangpyeong, where his grandfather lives.

Next to him, Ber answered with a serious expression.

[Until now, we have thought that Italim's apostles would target national power-level hunters who have the vessels to house their power... but they may not be the only ones with a chance!]

"What are you talking about?"

[The Solord's grandfather was also a hunter who received power from the rulers in his past life!]

"...!"

At that moment, Suho rushed to Yangpyeong with all his might.